SP3 and Civ 5 question

[be77solo]

Though I understand we aren't comparing apples to oranges I stand by my statement that the i7 will outperform the SP2. But nobody will know for certain until someone has it to compare with. There is a substantial difference in the processors.

Unfortunately there isn't a substantial difference... if the i7 was quad core like its laptop counterpart, I'd agree with you, as dual core to quad core is a nice jump. But, the SP3's i7 is still a dual core with the same TDP as the i5. Here are the specs for each:

4th Gen i5-4300U; Clock Speed 1.9 GHz (Max 2.9 GHz); Intel HD 4400
4th Gen i7-4650U; Clock Speed 1.7 GHz (Max 3.3 GHz); Intel HD 5000

Even the HD4400 ---> HD5000 isn't that much of a jump (20EU's to 40EU's):

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7072/intel-hd-5000-vs-hd-4000-vs-hd-4400

Improvements in the MacBook with HD5000 they test, which has much better thermal headroom than the SP3, is still 10% or less over the HD4400. Throw in the serious throttling the SP3 has that drops the GPU from 1100mhz down to 598mhz, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture.

I'm hoping Microsoft gives the i7 a better thermal throttling curve to work with, and have an i7 on order to compare, but nothing I can come up with points to the i7-4650U being substantially better.

I just hope the 40 EU's on the HD5000 can help offset the 20Eu's a bit at Microsoft's throttled speed.

 

[bluegrass]

I assume that you're all talking about whether the i7 is going to be a faster gaming machine then the i5 & not whether the i7 will be faster then the i5 as a business machine?

 

[leeshor]

I guess we'll have to wait. But I didn't see anyone mention that the i7 has 33% more level 2+3 cache and the difference between 20EUs and 40EUs is 100%. Much depends on what you will be using it for

 

[be77solo]

I guess we'll have to wait. But I didn't see anyone mention that the i7 has 33% more level 2+3 cache and the difference between 20EUs and 40EUs is 100%. Much depends on what you will be using it for

You are correct, in short bursts, no one is saying the i7 won't be a bit faster.

This thread was started asking about the game Civ 5, so gaming performance was the topic. The SP2 does in fact play Civ 5 (along with all other games) faster than the SP3.

Business machine is a broader stroke and hard to pin down, but for day to day basic office type usage, throttling does not come in to play and the i7 will marginally perform these tasks faster, but the i5 is already plenty fast enough for these tasks.

Graphic intensive programs or encoding will however run into the throttling issues, but that's outside of most basic business usage as well.

And, yes, the i7 does have twice the EU's, but benchmarks only show that increases performance in other machines that aren't thermally throttled as bad as the SP3 about 10%. The problem is that the current i5 can't be utilized even to it's potential like it can be in the SP2, so what hope does the i7 have?

I'm hoping it closes the gap between the i5 SP3 and the SP2, and would be tickled pink if it actually manages to surpass the SP2, but I just can't see that happening in the SP3 chassis until Broadwell later this year.

 

[be77solo]

Well, with the SP3 i7 available in Japan now, was hoping to see some better tests but not much I've seen except for these: (thanks forum.notebookreview.com!)

"one more number of i7, 15% slower than sp2 when converting video:

176: [Fn] + [Mr.名無shi]: 2014 / 07 / 18 (Friday) 10:41:55.88 ID:3 jKVzDjC video enco comparison (TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5)

Convert mp4 to AVI 8:02

Of course the same Inco set

Surface Pro 2 128 GB core i5 time: 20:25

Surface Pro 3 512GB core i7 time: 23:20"

Seems under load the i7 SP3 is still slower than the i5 SP2 unfortunately.